“They did the best they could” — Excusing Parental Abuse

I just ended a session with an intelligent, eminently sane woman whose mother too often became a raging witch who did things she would be punished for if seen today, and whose father was a passive bystander. The client thanked me for listening and for believing her.

When her previous therapist said, “They did the best they could,” (referring to the parents) it was a signal to Donna (not her real name) that there was nothing more to say. Conversation closed. That was pretty much the end of therapy too.

I don’t know if it was “the best they could do,” but it certainly doesn’t look that way to an adult child who has grown up and decided, through much effort, to do things differently.

The struggle for Donna and everyone who suffered from parental abuse as a child is to heal herself of the self-blame that is both natural to a child’s self-centered view and which is reinforced every time someone minimizes or dismisses their experience.

To make things worse, if the parent denies responsibility or even denies what happened (e.g. verbally denying or acting as if nothing happened after a violent assault) victims don’t know what to do with the experience. They are left to bury it in the unconscious, conceal it, or risk being labeled a problem. It is crazy-making.

One of the worst things you can do to someone is create a rupture in the continuity of their being where they have to disown part of their experience. It’s like creating a crack in their soul. Any time we minimize someone’s experience, essentially telling them, “don’t feel that way” or “that’s not the way it was,” or “you have no cause for complaint,” we make that crack bigger.

What those who have gone through deep suffering need is someone who they feel is on their side, not someone shutting down their process.

Now I know some people think we’ve gone too far focusing on wounds, but I see too much of the alternative, where people leave the dirt piled up under the carpet and trip over it their whole lives. Or, worse yet, pass the injuries on.

I know in some circles blame is out; but from my perspective, blame is part of a process. Not good to spend your life in, but often absolutely essential.

Those who are healing are often admonished to forgive, but it is usually premature and can impede the emergence of a more genuine and whole forgiveness. Forgiving at the beginning, before ever ‘opening the book’ makes it likely that any “forgiveness” is an imitation plastered on top of a mountain of “stuff” that you can’t get to now because the book has been closed.

It’s interesting that this line, “They did the best they could” is so often said about parents. I never hear it used with politicians or CEO’s. Yeah, the company went under, there was massive collateral damage, the people at the top were paying off their buddies and hiding information, but “they did the best they could.” Really?

There’s a larger philosophical issue about whether we all are doing the best we can at any given time (re to determinism and free will) that I will not get into. I’m pointing out that 1) we apply this position selectively, and 2) it’s not helpful!

It strikes me more as something we say when we’re uncomfortable and want to foreclose the pain in the room.

Let’s allow people their experience, meet their pain when we can, and trust that those who are sincerely and honestly engaged in their process are right where they need to be.

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40 comments on ““They did the best they could” — Excusing Parental Abuse”

Thank you once again for writing about truth and wisdom. “They did the best they could” my ass. The truth needs to be acknowledged for healing to occur–for survivors of trauma to know that at least one other person on the planet understands what they have endured. Thank you for being a leader in the trauma healing field who acknowledges it all. You are deeply appreciated.

Jasmin, I have just discovered your writings and your work. I want to thank you for your witness and your wisdom. In my experience, the points you make are absolutely true. I totally adore the memory of my mother, who had experienced severe emotional neglect and abuse, during her tender youth. She did pass on the wounds to myself and my brother. I feel great tenderness towards her story and ours – but I also do not wish to pass it on. And I agree, to be truly heard by someone else is a great gift of wisdom and witnessing. It validates and that helps with healing and the capacity to move beyond. Many blessings, your work comes from Great Healing.

I couldn’t forgive my mother until I truly realized what forgiveness was. She was horrible to me for the majority of my life. I don’t (and never will) accept or excuse her behavior but I do forgive her. When I’d hear people say “forgiveness is a gift you give yourself” I’d throw up in my mouth a little. However, now I get it. It is a gift I’ve given myself. I believe a big part of it is seeing my mother as a weak, and pathetic, woman who wasted the last half of her life being angry at me when there was no need to be. I can’t help but feel sorry for someone like that. She obviously had some kind of mental/emotional issues that, again, I don’t excuse but understand better.

Thanks, Patricia, for making the important distinction between forgiving the person but not the behavior. In my understanding, it is a gift to yourself because you let go of it and don’t need to continue carrying it, but you let go because you’re done.

“Now I know some people think we’ve gone too far focusing on wounds, but I see too much of the alternative, where people leave the dirt piled up under the carpet and trip over it their whole lives.” Indeed, perhaps what we need is more focus on wounds – specifically the healing of wounds so we can really and truly be free. Thanks for speaking truth!

I think some of the criticism around speaking about wounds is discomfort. It goes against social conditioning and is uncomfortable for those who don’t like the messiness and pain of it. Emotional healing is hard work and needs to be respected. Thanks for your comment, Kimberlie.

Such an appropriate post. I was right in the middle of reading it out loud to my Husband when I received a phone call that my Father had passed. I’m so glad I had done my healing work and now can lovingly let him know that I am whole. I am a survivor, and my life continues to get better, day by day. Thank you Jasmin

Thank you Jasmin for this post – it could not have been more timely. I have spent decades wrestling with the trauma/abuse/neglect that was my childhood experience and working on my own healing. Much of the journey has been about learning to actually live in and feel my body as my only survival option was massive dissociation. Much has now been healed but these last few weeks have been hard at a level I have never experienced before in working with dissociation. The experience in my body defied description other than I would do anything to get rid of it. Then this morning something in me led me to pick up a book called “Healing Agony” by Stephen Cherry and on the page that I opened I read about evil and how an evil person actually enjoys hurting other people and knowing they have made them hurt. And in that moment I realised this place of pain beyond description in its awfulness is the feeling of knowing my mother enjoyed deliberately hurting me. Just being able to put a name to this feeling place has helped and your post today has helped too. Thank you Jasmin PS I would recommend “Healing Agony” as a book to read about the perils of rushing into forgiveness. for me it is a book I am finding a real blessing in facing this awful truth about how my mother was to me.

“Forgiving at the beginning, before ever ‘opening the book’ makes it likely that any “forgiveness” is an imitation…”

That kind of forgiveness just adds another obstacle to genuine (heart- and body-felt) truth. I wonder why many therapists don’t get this. “They did the best they good” is nothing more than a blanket statement – and not the ‘one size fits all’ kind of blanket.

Jasmin, thank you so much for sharing your gifts of truth in your blog and books.

When I was a child I was invalidated about almost anything: including feelings and even physical pain and/or discomfort. I usually feel invalidated by almost anything someone can say to me. I don’t know what to do really. How not to take in everything I hear. It must be that I don’t trust my self, don’t believe in me and I doubt myself. I have heard that I need to speak up and say my truth. I believe this is true but I’m struggling and wrestling with myself. It’s difficult to work with the abuse and trauma if therapists and psychologists keep invalidating me. I think that what I need right now is validation from myself and even from someone else. How much time is too much?

Rosa, I’m not sure about your question, how much time is too much? To keep supporting ourselves? We need to do that all our lives. When feeling invalidated ALL the time, it means either your environment is really unhealthy or your system is stuck somewhere. All I can suggest is trying to work on this, alone if you are gifted, or with the right therapist if you can find that. Good luck!

I have perhaps been the author of my own demise..I am the one who says that my parents did the best they could, flawed though they were and we all are..and whilst I do feel genuine compassion for them as an adult, as a child I was hurt by what they did, and it is so difficult to hold both those positions at the same time.

I don’t want to blame them because I know that they are only the product of their upbringings, but I was their daughter and child and to me, they were my parents and in that role they did let me down.

I have been doing some clearing out today and tried to sort out some papers and diaries from way back which tell the tale of a very miserable child and teenager who tried and failed to make sense of being sad so much of the time and who found solace in religion and “sharing the sufferings of Christ.”..rather than in relationship With others, as any good Catholic would be proud to do….

Jasmin, you have an extraordinary gift for putting profound emotional experiences into words, and when you do, I feel that it validates my experience…..that someone who does not know me can put my experience into words…Thank you, thank you.

After a long day of sorting things out, I read your words and find myself in tears, perhaps of relief that someone out there understands and knows without having to be told….

It is quite strange living what seems to be a double kind of life, as I suspect your other readers do too–outwardly a perfectly competent wife, mother, professional, and friend, but in private wrestling with all kinds of demons…
Pippa

Invalidation:it says so much–a denial of one’s experiences which leads to doubting, uncertainty, a sense of “no one will believe me or take me seriously,” or it was not as it seemed, and yet one knows that it was.

The film The Matrix contains many useful metaphors, but the one that speaks strongly to me is the moment is when Eno tries to speak to his captors but finds that his mouth has vanished. The viewer sees his contorted writhing in agony as he realizes he cannot speak and express himself.
Pippa

Pippa, you have summed up my childhood experience and how I see my parents in one entry. Glad, yet sad to read that someone else out in this world had similar experiences such as I. Yes, my parents had a unique upbringing which shaped their world and their perceptions but at the end of the day I was their child. I love them but I am extremely disappointed in how they raised me. I didn’t ask to be here! Yet, I’m forced to endure this existence without being able to meaningfully connect to it. My mother was cold, aloof, and emotionally absent throughout my life. I don’t mean to ramble. And I don’t intend to lump you with my experiences as you have your own. I’m just wowed that someone else gets it!
Regards,
Sandra

Hi Jasmin, I got your latest post and also I read about Vulnerabilitiy and Trauma and it reopened my eyes to the facts that I am looking for professional therapists to help me or a trusted friend.Thank you so much for your posts and the work u do is beneficial to everyone who logs on to your website. I am deeply touched by your work and kindness in a scary world.

This is BRILLIANT: “It’s interesting that this line, ‘They did the best they could’ is so often said about parents. I never hear it used with politicians or CEO’s. Yeah, the company went under, there was massive collateral damage, the people at the top were paying off their buddies and hiding information, but ‘they did the best they could.’ Really?” What a terrific analogy and MAYBE even a way to get other people to understand what it feels like to have someone say, about your toxic parents, “But they were doing the best they could.” “Yeah, just like Enron. :-)”
Thank you for this!

JC: I know in some circles blame is out; but from my perspective, blame is part of a process. Not good to spend your life in, but often absolutely essential.

CS: Blame is the wrong word. Blame is irrelevant. Healing is relevant. Healing is closed down, the book is shut, like you accurately write, when the healing process is “shut down” by saying “they did the best they could”. People who accuse those who leave the book open as “blamers” are using a common, cruel, and unjust tactic of wrongly labelling the disagreeing party with an inapproriate word: blame. Wrong word!

If a shark bites off your leg, is it helpful to say “gee, he was just being a shark you know”. Fact: The leg will never be the same. Point: But the emotions, the trauma of that experience, would you EVER say “he was just being a shark, doing what sharks do” to that person’s “emotional experience”? Hell no. But this is what people do who call it “blame” to immediately use a word that gets the person who is trying to heal by grief, to Stop Labelling the parents as complicit! These people who use the word “BLAME” are either
1. defending the parents
2. trying to get the parents “off the hook” (so the parents can feel better)

But the problem with many of us who have “stuffed our pile of dirt under the rug” so long is the lie, the lies, we had to live (and smile for the camera). As you rightly say JC, this blame word is an effort to shut down and Deny the reality of the Grief that needs to heal.

YES, most of this stuff is generational, and our parents who did it to us, were wounded and inheritted it, so we can go on upstream if we want to do a courtroom style “who is at fault” thing. But when we need to GRIEVE to heal, being angry at the perpetrator**, whether one generation or all generations, DEFENDING the self, Resurrecting the Self, who was buried under that pile of dirt (which I usually call feces) that was swept under the carpet, is part of the process.

So we need a new word to defend ourselves from the blame word. It’s on the tip of my tongue but it needs to process a little more to come out.

So when someone says “stop blaming your parents” we can state OUR truth and say “well, to me it’s not about blame, it’s about healing. And as long as I am wearing crap that belongs upstream, I won’t heal. I’m just passing the feces up stream where it belongs, so it will go to the grave with them, not into my offspring from me”. Or something like that.

** It’s not about blaming the perpetrator. It’s about landing the feces/garbage/dirt back upstream where it belongs, in the mind and heart and emotional soul of the wounded. So that the wounded can heal. The people who are trying to “protect the parents” don’t want the parents to have to “wear” anything, but all this baggage belongs “upstream” and we need to pass it back “upstream” for as many generations as we need to, to keep from passing it downstream.

When we “minimize” (or justify) an abusive act, or even just a painful act (like the shark biting the leg off) It SHUTS DOWN the healing process.

You have rightly said all of this JC. I am just chewing around on it some more so we can cipher out some more efficient words that nail the ass of those who label us as blamers rather than seekers of healing and freedom (instead of feeling labeled as bad blamers ourselves).

Very thoughtful post, Carl, thank you. Let us know when you find the word that seems to fit. When I look up the word ‘blame’ is says assigning responsibility for a wrong. I’m okay with that. We need to take responsibility for the healing, but the responsibility or who is at fault for the injury is a different matter.

It is like what has happened with the word ‘judgment.’ People are often terrified now of being considered judgmental. There is a nuance there. Being discerning is important and maybe even assigning responsibility; throwing people out as globally worthless is what we want to avoid.

Blame as likewise become something ‘incorrect’ to do. Blame that denies the self-responsibility for healing and keeps one a victim is of service to no one. But perhaps blame for the problem–as in every other area of life–isn’t so off-base.

So if someone says, “You’re just blaming your parents” (i.e. “Bad girl!”), I might say, “I am assigning responsibility for what happened, but I don’t plan on staying a victim. I take responsibility for healing. It sounds like it makes you uncomfortable.” In other words, we don’t take on their implied prohibitions.

Sounds like I’m arguing that we could reclaim the word “blame” just as other terms once pejorative have been reclaimed (black, queer….)

Blame is like the word “at fault”. Our litigious society has caused many in our culture to think in this fashion. When we stop worrying about who “is at fault” in a car wreck, we focus on fixing the injured cars and human beings, and healing of both takes place. When we start “affixing blame” then people lie (to avoid being blamed or at fault) and it encourages lying and denial. And this, in today’s culture, has been blown way out of proportion…too much is made of ‘who is at fault” (for the benefit of a pocketbook) and not near enough on healing and moving on. Thus, when the term blame is used, many of us, at least Americans, subconsciously associated this healthier attitude of “may we please all have “no fault” insurance so we can stay out of the courtroom arguing about blame and just get our cars and our bodies fixed and moved on”.

So our entire culture is polluted with very ugly dysfunction around the “cash benefits of effective blame” which in the case of these car wrecks, keeps people in neck braces, faking it, going to Chiropractors ten times more than they need to (in order to encourage the other side to pay up sooner). This, and perhaps other places, is where the sterile dictionary definition of blame, gets polluted in the conscious and non conscious definitions in the heads of alert people in this culture.

I think the word you’re looking for is accountability. Neither of my parents want to know about my pain. My step-mother is more emotionally available to me than either parent, but whilst she totally wants me to blame my mother for my grief as a way of trying to protect my father, who in my view is just as guilty of neglect as my mother, she also constantly invalidates my experience. She tells me that blame and fault finding isn’t helpful and like her I should just get on with my life. What she doesn’t realise is that I’m not looking to blame or find fault, I understand why my parents are the way they are. But I do need to unlock the door on accountability in order to stop blaming myself for their actions. I haven’t managed it yet, mainly I think because it’s so convenient for everyone else to think it’s ‘my’ problem, and I’m not allowed to feel angry about it because my pain is ‘self-inflicted’. Validation is so sorely lacking in my life I wonder if sometimes I exist at all. The mirroring that one is supposed to receive as a child in order to gain a picture of who we are just didn’t seem to happen. When I look in my emotional mirror, all I see is the fiberboard that sits behind where the mirror should be.

Yes, the reason I don’t flinch from the word blame (by which I mean accountability)is that you can stop feeling at fault yourself and make room for other emotions, like anger, which I think need to be felt for any real healing. So important that you get some mirroring now and learn to see yourself. Best to you! Jasmin

JC: Very thoughtful post, Carl, thank you. Let us know when you find the word that seems to fit. When I look up the word ‘blame’ is says assigning responsibility for a wrong. I’m okay with that. We need to take responsibility for the healing, but the responsibility or who is at fault for the injury is a different matter.

CS: I agree completely with your initial post and with your definition of blame too. The “box” that those who condemn us as parent blamers, the box they put us in, is the box that you accurately describe and closes the book of healing. Well said.

JC: Let us know when you find the word that seems to fit.

CS: I will think on this and sure do so. Those who label us as blamers are usually defending the parents by disassociating the blame. And thus the word blame generates resistance from those in whose lap it truly belongs. Which can be passed up stream many generations.

That’s where it gets the negative and inappropriate connotation in therapeutic truth that heals by understanding and truth.

Healing wounds inside us is not about making anyone pay. It’s about healing.
Blame in the dictionary sense of “rightly assigning responsibility for a wrong”, culturally (in this USA culture) is about making someone pay. “Who do we blame, BP, for the Gulf Oil Spill”. Who do we blame, that drunk driver, for this wreck. Connotation: make them pay.

But what we are doing in healing ourselves by putting stuff back in the lap of where it came from, is not blame. It’s putting it back in their laps, for the sake of getting it “off of / out of us”, the wounded. It’s returning, by shining the light on, the garbage, the poison, the games, the denials, the shutting down of true emotions and requiring phony ones. So getting closer to the right word, it will have something to do not with making others pay by assignment of responsibility, but with returning, handing back, the garbage, where it came from. These are important parts of the “culturally assigned” (but not dictionary) definition of blame.

Please forgive my “thinking outloud” if it is distracting to you JC. I can give you the abbreviated versions if you prefer?

But it is the cultural connotation that assigning blame is about making someone pay that causes me to believe blame is not the best word.

The better word? A word which means “shining a light on the immediate** source of the inherited garbage causing the disorder(s),” rather than “assigning responsibility for a wrong”.

**If parents just “repeated what was done to them” we could not call the parents the source, we’d have to call their parents, and their parents parents etc. That’s why I wrote “immediate” source.

Thanks for this wonderful piece of writing! I came to your site because I’ve been reading “The Emotionally Absent Mother” and appreciating every word. But the title of this post made me cheer! The phrase “they did the best they could” has, for a very long time, upset and annoyed me more than (almost) any other. And you have articulated EXACTLY why! I realized awhile back (in an effort to defuse my reactivity to it) that this phrase is absolutely meaningless. EVERYONE is doing the best they can – by definition, as it is impossible to do anything else – and this includes those who commit awful crimes. But that does not mean that our legal system doesn’t hold them accountable. I like your idea of reclaiming the word “blame” – I once thought I’d write a book titled “The Folly of Forgiveness and the Benefits of Blame!”, But for me it is really about responsibility. As adults we are all responsible for our actions. Being a parent doesn’t give you immunity from this. In fact, I would argue that it is even more important to take full responsibility for your actions and behavior as you are doing the most important “job” in the world!
Thanks again for the great post. Looking forward to reading many more.

I just read “Healing From Trauma” and “The Emotionally Absent Mother.” Both are excellent. Thank you. I just question one point in “Mother.” You suggest the child of an emotionally abusive mother learn her story, try to understand her problems, and show her compassion. But, presumably, such mothers were not subject to an irresistible compulsion. They retained the power of choice, and they chose to treat their children in ways that were obviously and deeply hurtful. Perhaps that’s all those children need to know. Personal accountability and justice can be powerful sources of healing.

The main purpose in having people see a bigger picture of their mother is to go beyond the naturally limited view of the child who tends to blame him- or herself. I do hold parents accountable for their actions, but it is not my sense that parents are always purposefully choosing to be hurtful. Although some may be sadistic, mostly bad parents are acting out of their distorted expectations, ego wounds, mental illness, unresolved trauma, ignorance, overwhelm, dissociation, and related factors. Yes, they could have chosen to learn how to parent better (as many of their adult children have), and it’s costly that they did not.

So interesting to read everyone’s comments. Thank you.
I began to really and truly heal when I was able to transform my raging blaming child self into a more rational adult self, who now expects others to be fully accountable and responsible for all they say and do, despite whatever traumas or disasters might have affected them. No one has the right to demean another, and there is no excuse whatsoever for abusive behaviour.
In the past, I readily “forgave” my emotionally immature and damaged mother, and my disabled daughter for their selfishness, believing the couldn’t help it. Now I know differently, and that is a consequence of years of deep diving into my psyche, and learning how to rescue and parent my once dissociated infant self. Today I have strong boundaries around me to protect me, and not only have I healed myself, my daughter too is transformed. only now, can I really experience the power of forgiveness.